Buycott app gets public to boycott Israeli produce

As critics of Israel’s policy in Gaza lose faith in governments to take action, a new app is helping them to it themselves. Buycott is one of the hottest items on the market as shoppers are using it in their droves to avoid purchasing Israeli products.

The Buycott app has a number of groups, which its users can join,
with one of the most successful being the “Long live Palestine,
boycott Israel” group. Numbering just a few hundred users in
mid-July, it has surged in popularity in a month, with over a
quarter of a million people currently signed up, according to the
Buycott website.

The “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel” group on the Buycott
app was set up in April by a British teenager. It is going from
strength to strength. The group saw traffic grow by almost 30
percent in just 12 hours on the morning of Thursday 7.

“I noticed three weeks ago that we were seeing an unusual
spike in traffic, but there hadn’t been any articles written
about the app or Israel campaigns,” said Ivan Pardo,
speaking to Forbes. “Next thing I knew Buycott was a top 10
app in the UK and Netherlands, and #1 in a number of Middle
Eastern countries. Word was spreading through social media.”

The groups mission is about, “ordinary people around the
world using their right to help bring an end to the oppression in
Palestine. It’s a peaceful means of putting international
pressure on the state of Israel and follows in the successful
boycott against South African apartheid,” a message on the
“Long live Palestine, boycott Israel” application stated.

The app works by allowing shoppers to scan barcodes of food
products, such as a tub of hummus, to see if it was produced in
Israel, or has any links with companies that support Israel’s
bombardment of Gaza. The scanning process takes just a few
seconds and then provides information about the company, such as
its location and its website.

The Long Live Palestine, boycott Israel group has 49 companies on
its ‘companies to avoid’ list, which range from Victoria’s
Secret, which is one of the largest clients of Delta Galil, who
operate a textile factory in the West Bank industrial zone of
Barkan, to Volvo, who’s machinery has been used to destroy
Palestinian settlements in violation of international law.

In contrast, the group also supports four companies, such as the
Taybeh Brewing Company, which operates a Palestinian owned
brewery and winery in the West Bank. Also on the list is the UK
cosmetics firm Lush, which has striven to raise awareness of the
struggle for human rights in Palestine.

I scanned everything before I bought them today using the
"buycott" app. Trying my best!#BoycottIsrael

Social media has been playing its own part in trying to put
economic pressure on Israel to halt its actions in Gaza. The
Israeli company SodaStream, which is also on “Long live
Palestine, boycott Israel’s” list has come in for particular
criticism.

SodaStream has its main plant in the industrial zone of Mishor
Edomim, which is an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank,
while the Boycott website also states that Palestinians who work
there are paid less than half the minimum wage.

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement
targets products and companies (Israeli and international) that
profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, as well as
Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions.

In February, BDS hit the headlines when it demanded Oxfam drop
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson as an ambassador for her
endorsement of SodaStream. They argued that Johansson’s role in
Oxfam undermined the organization’s supposed condemnation of
economic corporation with Israeli settlements.

"A refusal to part ways with Johansson will tarnish the
charity’s credibility among Palestinians and many people of
conscience around the world,” said the BDS in a statement.

Meanwhile, SodaStream’s UK operations were dealt a blow in July
after department store John Lewis decided to stop stocking the
product in its shops, while another store in Brighton, which had
endured protests for two years, also decided to close.

Sarah Colborne, the director of the Palestine Solidarity
Campaign, attributed the closure of the Brighton store as well
the decision by John Lewis, directly to pressure from the BDS movement.

“The news that SodaStream is closing its main UK store and
that John Lewis is taking Soda Stream products off its shelves is
a major success for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
movement,” she said, according to Haaretz.